


Just Go With It

by violetsmoak (ErtheChilde)



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Detective Comics (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Awkward Tim Drake, First Love, Jason Todd is Robin, Jason Tries To Be Suave, M/M, Meet-Cute, Misunderstandings, POV Jason Todd, Pre-Slash, Tim Does Some Quick Thinking, Tim Is A Mini Stalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:03:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23538436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErtheChilde/pseuds/violetsmoak
Summary: In which Jason’s instincts and Tim’s panic response are a little bit off.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Jason Todd
Comments: 65
Kudos: 328





	Just Go With It

**Author's Note:**

> **Rating:**PG  
Canon-Compliance: Takes place at the end of Jason's run as Robin. Jason is 15 and Tim is 12
> 
> **Original Tumblr Prompt from Anonymous:** Congrats on passing 200 followers! As for prompts, I’ve always been curious on what your take on a “Jason and Tim meet as kids (and eventually fall in love)” story would be like. Your writing has always brought me so much joy, so thank you for all that you do and share with us!
> 
> While I don’t have my own headcanon for this because so many writers before me have done it so well, but I hopefully this fulfils your expectations! 

Jason is being watched.

He knows this with the certainty of a kid who grew up on the street, and one who has worn the mantle of Robin for three years now. It’s pretty much impossible for him not to notice the sensation of eyes scrutinizing, and he’s been feeling variations of that for two weeks now.

_And today I’m finally going to do something about it…_

Gotham Public Library has provided him a manner of safe haven these past few months, when it’s too tense to go back to the manor and all of Bruce’s bullshit, and when he’d rather not spend another minute at school. He’s been letting himself get lost in his homework assignments and the occasional novel after school, and it’s close to peaceful.

Until the staring began.

To be fair, the kid doing it is trying not to be too obvious about it; he watches from out of the corner of his eyes and doesn’t let his attention linger for longer than a few seconds lest it become noticeable.

But there’s just something about that attention that sticks with Jason; it’s getting to the point where he imagines he feels it when he goes out on patrol, too.

More confounding is the kid’s knack for disappearing before Jason can get up the momentum to confront him. One-minute Jason will be surveying him, then he’ll look down to his book and back, and the kid will be gone.

_It’s like he takes lessons from Batman when it comes to exits._

Jason doesn’t know anything about him, beyond the immediate facts: pale, black hair and very, very blue eyes. He’s young, the roundness of his face suggesting he’s younger than Jason, but he’s about two inches taller. Athletic, but in an understated way, his weight class far beneath Jason’s own in muscle alone.

The kid comes to the library alone, no friends of parents in sight. He wears clothes that are meant to look casual, but the brands are the same designer ones that Alfred purchases for Jason, meaning he’s got money. Sometimes he wears glasses—on those days Jason notices the staring more, as if the boy thinks having his eyes framed behind glass makes his interest less pervasive.

He’s also familiar in a way that Jason can’t place. If he didn’t know that no crook in Gotham would be so desperate as to employ a shrimp like this kid as anything other than maybe a drug runner, he’d figure he was under someone’s surveillance.

(His clothes are too nice, and those strange eyes not haunted enough to be a child of the streets like Jason.)

He always has a bunch of books he’s flipping through, or a tablet he’s working on; homework, from the look of the textbooks, but Jason’s caught sight of his reading selection on the Returns cart before leaving: digital photography, Zombie Survival Guide, histories of World War II codebreakers and varied biographies with no underlying theme.

It’s hard not to tap into all that Robin training to find out who his little stalker is; but he’s not paranoid, like Bruce, and there are more direct ways of doing it.

“So, the whole watchin’ me thing,” he says one day apropos of nothing and sits in a chair opposite the kid; this earns him a look that epitomizes ‘deer in the headlights’. “You got some kind of beef with me, or what?”

“What?” the boy squeaks.

“Every day the past two weeks, you sit at this table and pretend like you’re not starin’ at me—don’t say you don’t,” he adds when the kid opens his mouth to protest. “I know when I’m bein’ watched. Hazards of growin’ up in Crime Alley. So what do you want?”

He tries to come off as easy-going and joking, but with just the right edge of “if you’re fucking with me, I’ll end you” that Jason Wayne, adopted son of Brucie Wayne and former street kid would be expected to have. No point in breaking out the Robin voice or whup-ass.

“I—I was just—I wasn’t—you’re just—” the kid stammers, clearly having trouble formulating a response. Jason almost feels bad, but his suspicion about why he’s being watched by another kid with such intensity outweighs that.

He opens his mouth to remind the kid to breathe, when suddenly,

“Cute!” the boy blurts out, too loud for the library and earning a few irritated _shh!_ noises from the study nooks in the corner. Jason barely hears those, his own brain trying to parse what the kid just said. “I mean, you. Are. Cute—I think you’re cute.”

And then his eyes bulge, and his cheeks darken, and he looks abruptly furious with himself.

Jason’s own cheeks begin to flame, his jaw-dropping a little in surprise.

_Whatever I was expecting, _that_ was not it._

He’s never been hit on by a guy before.

Well, not a guy in his own age bracket. He’s had plenty of come-ons from older, and often drunker, creeps.

“I’m sorry,” the poor kid gasps, and he’s snatching at his things, practically vibrating like he wants to rip out of his own skin in an effort to vanish. “I don’t know…shouldn’t have said that. Sorry, I’m just…”

The kid looks so ashamed that Jason instantly feels bad.

He’s not entirely sure how he feels about having a boy like him; the only attention he’s ever gotten like that has been from the opposite sex, and even that’s sparse. The only kids he comes in contact in his line of work is on his occasional trips with the Titans, and even they’re all older than him. Other than his first and only girlfriend, Rena—who had to leave Gotham when her dad got transferred to Star City—the girls at Jason’s school only show an interest in him when they think he might buy them things.

But, he’s also Robin.

And Robin’s supposed to inspire confidence in people. If there’s something about him—even just as regular civilian Jason Todd—seems approachable to this kid, then he’s got to be careful how he handles it.

Besides, he can’t help feeling a little bit flattered.

It takes him a moment to think of something that might ease some of the tension from the situation.

“Pizza,” he offers.

That makes the other boy freeze and stare at him. “What?”

That earns more shushing, and so Jason makes sure to keep his voice pitched low the next time he speaks.

“There’s a pizza place down the block from the library,” he says. “You can design your own with whatever toppings. I think they do vegan stuff, too. If that’s a thing you… Do you want to maybe…go there? And talk?”

He cringes inwardly.

_Did that sound as lame to him as it did to me?_

He always thought asking out a girl was hard to do, but he’s never given any thought to how it might feel with a guy.

Said guy’s jaw does drop at this, as if this too, is the last thing he expected.

“You don’t have to,” he rushes to say. “I mean…what I said before. It just—you surprised me, is all. And I—I should go.”

Almost before Jason can register, he’s completely packed up and across the library like he’s got Kid Flash on his trail.

Worried the kid might accidentally run into traffic in his haste, Jason hurries after him.

He finds him outside the stairs of the library, the contents of his rashly collected belongings spilled over the steps and muttering angrily at himself.

Without a second thought, Jason stoops down beside him and picks up the nearest notebook, holding it out to him. “Sorry if I freaked you out.”

“Don’t be—I’m clearly the one who fails at human interaction.”

“I’m Jason,” he offers.

“I know,” is the instant reply.

Jason’s soothing mood vanishes within the next second, once more replaced with cool suspicion as he straightens up. “Yeah? And how do you know that?”

The boy’s face whips up toward him and he makes an almost strangled sound, like he’s trying to choke himself from the inside.

“I don’t mean that like it sounded,” he rushes to say. “I’ve seen you before, is all. At Wayne events. My parents always get invited, and sometimes they make me come along, and…” He trails off, forces himself to breathe, and then offers Jason a wan smile and his hand. Surprisingly, for all his discomfort before, it doesn’t shake. “Hi. I’m Tim Drake.”

“Right,” Jason says slowly, accepting the hand warily.

_Kid’s got a strong grip for someone so spindly._

That’s when it clicks for Jason, why the kid looks so familiar.

He _has_ seen him before, hanging out with the other rich kids that always seem to flock together and circle the wagons at these things. Unlike them, he’s always seemed to be as uncomfortable at the parties as Jason was, and spent more time trailing behind his parents and shaking hands with people than with the kids his own age.

_Maybe if I wasn’t spending so much time trying to figure out how to get out of those things early, we might have actually talked._

The explanation answers one question Jason had, but not the other.

“So, you’ve seen me at parties, and that made you decide to…what? Stalk me at the library?”

“No! No, I wasn’t—I happened to be in the library one day when you came in, and after that I just…kept…coming back,” Tim trails off, as if realizing he’s not making his case any better. He groans, pinching the bridge of his nose in a way Jason’s only ever seen Bruce do when he or Dick say or do something he can’t rationalize. “Look, it might come as a shock to you, but I’m not great with people. And you’re…” He gestures at Jason like that explains everything, “you.”

Clearly articulation isn’t a strong point, although Jason’s not sure if that’s an inborn characteristic or if Tim really is that flustered by him.

He kind of, really wants to find out.

Jason rubs at the back of his neck, trying to figure out what exactly he’s supposed to say to that, and then decides for both their sakes, he’ll let it slide. Instead, he says, “So, does that mean you’re in?”

Tim is taken off-guard. “Huh?”

“Pizza,” Jason repeats slowly. He jerks his thumb in the direction of the pizza parlor. “That way.”

That earns a stare, and then Tim’s blushing again. “I was serious before, you don’t have to—”

“Don’t tell me you’re not hungry. You look like you haven’t eaten since ever.”

“I have a fast metabolism.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I do!”

“Whatever. Consider it my civic duty as the son of a billionaire philanthropist,” Jason replies with a roll of the eyes. “The getting you fed part. You’re paying for it yourself, since now I know you have money.”

“But—I—_what_?”

“That’s how it works, isn’t it?” Jason says. “Go for a first date, then decide if you want to actually date or just be friends? I’m not sure, is it the same thing with guys as girls? Either way, I think it works out for both of us.” 

When Tim continues to look at him, uncomprehending, Jason wonders if somehow he’s completely misread the situation. 

“Unless I really did mess you up before and you just said that thing about me for shits and giggles.” Which is kind of a letdown, he realizes, and discovers he really doesn’t want Tim to have some kind of ulterior motive. There’s too much of that kind of thing in his life already. “Though…that still leaves the question about what you thought was so fascinating about this ugly mug.”

He’s barely finished the sentence, but Tim is blurting, “That was it.”

Jason raises an eyebrow.

“I mean,” Tim says, clearing his throat. “You’re not ugly. And yes to pizza. There is no world where the answer to pizza is ever ‘no’.”

“Barring parallel worlds,” Jason offers.

“Barring those,” Tim agrees and swings his backpack over his shoulder. He shifts, a little awkward. “So, where is this place?”

“Just down this way. We should hurry if you don’t want to get stuck in the supper rush,” Jason says, unable to stop the grin breaking out on his face. They start down the street together, but Jason pauses. “Before we go, just one more question.”

Tim tenses. “…Yes?”

“You’re not one of those weirdos that puts pineapple on pizza, are you? Because, I mean, the stalking thing I could probably forgive, but that…”

“Please, do I look like a heathen? The only thing that touches my pizza is Canadian bacon, onions and artichoke hearts.” 

The other boy adopts a scandalized expression; it’s the first one that has nothing to do with outright panic, and for that, Jason is glad. 

He makes a face at the odd combination, and then shrugs. “Weird. Then again, I’ll try anything once, so why not?”

**Author's Note:**

> _Yes, Tim is taller than Jason here. Because poor Jay is still malnourished and Timmy had a relatively healthy upbringing. I’d say Jay is 4′6″ here (which is canon for before he died) and Tim’s about 4′8″. Because there’s not enough tiny Jason fics in the world. :P_
> 
> _I may continue this. I may not. We'll see how the spirit moves me...But your feedback definitely makes a difference! I want to know what you think of my story, so feel free to leave kudos, a comment or as many of these emojis as you want and let me know how you feel!_
> 
> _❤️️ = I love this story!  
😳 = this was hot!  
💐 = thank you for sharing this  
🍵 = tea spilled  
🍬 = so sweet and fluffy!  
🚔 = you’re under arrest! the writing’s too good!  
😲 = I NEED THE NEXT CHAPTER  
😢 = you got me right in the feels  
🤯mind blown  
🤬god damn cliffhanger  
😫 whyyyyyyy?!?!?_
> 
> _And if anyone has any writing prompts or requests, feel free to check out my tumblr and send them along_  
~V 


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